


the song I sing is you

by luninosity, ninemoons42



Category: Actor RPF, Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Acting, Actors, Broadway Musical References, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Inspired by Music, Les Misérables References, Love at First Sight, M/M, Minor Injuries, Musicals, Stage Fighting, Teaching, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-11 12:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3327494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was like stepping onstage for the first time all over again--or it was like being coaxed onto the stage, Sebastian thought, like following other people toward the footlights over and over again. </p><p>Chris was pretty sure that he was in love; that he’d never known what love was, before now, before Billy Idol and Gene Kelly and the backdrop of falling rain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Partially inspired by Sebastian Stan's [appearance as a guest speaker at the Applause NY acting school.](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2009/09/video_acting_lessons_with_goss.html) We couldn't resist.

**Sebastian - definitions of swagger**

_OCTOBER 1995_  
Sebastian took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, and listened, and the sounds of backstage at the Royal Albert Hall faded away: the mishmash of accents, ruffles in shuffling sheaves of paper and scores, the sharp to-ing and fro-ing of work shoes and overalls and thick gloves.

 _Tick, tock._ He could point to where that clock was. It was located over one of the stage doors. It had a red frame and black numbers, and it ran precisely four minutes behind the stage manager’s watch, and no one minded. It was better to be early to your mark anyway, and the music was the final cue, the warning, the last deep breath, before--

“Sebastian.” A kind voice, sweetly mischievous, and he smiled before he opened his eyes, and the young woman in the oversized hat winked at him. “They’re looking for you.”

“I’m supposed to be waiting for the Michaels,” he said, and of course he was already familiar with her: thin bony shoulders, delicate hands, and he couldn’t figure out where Lea was hiding her voice, the music that must throb in her very blood and bones, because she had a voice that could fill the hall, and she didn’t need any microphones to do it with. _Famous_ , Sebastian thought, was not a big enough word to describe her.

He watched Lea rummage in her pockets. “Candy?” she asked. A red wrapper, thin yellow lines, Chinese characters. “It helps me with my voice.”

“Thank you,” Sebastian said, and scratched absently behind his collar. One of the shawls, he guessed, or maybe the tattered shirt he was wearing. The candy tasted like ripe rain and the earth in which flowers bloomed, and it warmed his throat, and he smiled at her, and sucked in a long, slow breath. “I like it.”

“Great stuff, isn’t it? I brought a big bag with me, so if you want more, just let me know. As for the Michaels, well,” and she was towing him on in the direction of the stage, so he held on tightly and followed and made his excuses past Colm and Philip and the offer of a cup of tea. “I think one or both of them’s running late. They’re asking if you don’t mind doing a solo, I mean just you on the stage and no one else.”

His knees immediately felt like they wanted to knock together, even though they were still in fact moving, and he did nearly stumble and Lea only looked understanding as she caught him and steadied him and waited for him to speak. “I--really? Just me and--this place?”

“And the orchestra.” A flash of a smile, kind and thoughtless and sweet. “And me, if you don’t mind. If you don’t want to be alone.”

Mind? He couldn’t mind at all. He put a brave smile on. He’d do it because she asked. “Lead on, please.”

And now here was the microphone and here were the stage lights, and everything was a little more familiar now, all the way down to the swoop of massive butterflies that had already overrun his stomach, overrun the place where his heart beat high and shaking with excitement and fear, and were now attempting to fly out of his ears.

The microphone seemed to be staring at him, one part curious and one part a challenge, and he made faces back at it, as he had almost every time he’d been put in the spotlight at these rehearsals. He stuck his tongue out at it. He pouted at it and growled soundlessly at it.

“Sebastian,” and he stopped and blinked and smiled shyly back at the stage manager, who was standing more or less in the left-hand aisle. “How do you feel?”

“A little afraid,” he said, and he couldn’t stop himself from wincing at his own voice, small and shivery in the vast spaces of the hall. Just a few of the stage lights were working, so he couldn’t even see the stalls, let alone the very highest seats.

“It’s all right to be afraid,” the stage manager said, “so long as you can sing.”

“I can sing,” Sebastian said, and he squinted at his microphone one more time. “Which one?” And he looked down at his stage-dirty sock--he only had one to wear, and it was slumping down into his wooden shoes like ice-cream left too long in a cone--and began to recite, and the tune was something that kept turning in his head when he was sleeping and when he was eating and when he was trying to figure out the Underground:

Je suis tombé par terre,  
C’est la faute à Voltaire  
Le nez dans le ruisseau,  
C’est la faute à Rousseau  
Je ne suis pas notaire,  
C’est la faute à Voltaire  
Je suis petit oiseau,  
C’est la faute à Rousseau....

And then there was applause, and encouraging thumbs-ups from Lea and the people who had magically appeared next to her--Alun and Colm and Ruthie--and the stage manager was saying, “Are you sure we can’t have him do that during the show? No? Ah, come on.”

Sebastian could feel the blush rising in his cheeks, to his forehead, and he had to squeak when a huge hand landed right on his hair: it was Philip, and he didn’t know where Philip had come from either.

“‘Look Down’?” the stage manager asked.

Sebastian nodded. Tilted his head back a little. Waited for his cue--and Lea and Ruthie sang, like funeral drums, like dirt and desperation: “ _Look down, look down, upon your fellow man!_ ”

Beat, beat, and Sebastian began, to the urgent rhythm of the others’ voices: “ _How d’you do, my name’s Gavroche!_ ”

After, he sank into a chair next to Colm. “Tea?” Colm asked, and his white hair seemed to glow, a bright light around his head, whiter than the white shirt that he was wearing, because he had to be the only person at the rehearsals who wasn’t in costume. Even Philip was wearing his big dark coat.

As for Colm, he filled the spaces of the stage, not like Lea, but like himself: like he never got lost, like he had never been afraid.

“Yes please,” Sebastian said, and this time he was grateful to sip at the honey-softness, at the flowers bursting gently upon his tongue.

“You don’t have to stand still when you sing.”

He nodded, and gulped down more tea. “I know. I remember. But--Gavroche does a lot of running. When I think of him I think of someone who can’t sit still. I can’t run, not here. I don’t have a mic to wear on my head.”

Colm chuckled, and kneaded Sebastian’s shoulder. “Right, right. But--well, you’ve seen me, and you’ve seen the others. You can turn and address different parts of the audience, and you can be--proud, arrogant, the things that the boy sings about. Use your shoulders.”

“I can walk in place?”

“Right. Stand up. Show me.”

Sebastian hurried to comply, and shifted his shoulders and pulled at his braces. He danced a little jig. He kicked out with one insouciant shoe. Approving nods.

“That,” Colm said, “is called a swagger, and by god you’ve got it. Do that when you sing. Be the _gamin_.” And then he smiled again, and that, too, was warming.

 _NOW_  
Sebastian threw his shoulders back and looked at wide eyes and still hands and hanging mouths, and let the corner of his mouth quirk up in a smile.

In his hand he was holding a small black box. “Some of you will know exactly what I’m going to do the minute the music starts playing. If you do, please remember that this classroom is a spoiler-free zone. And if you can’t remember that, then remember it’s sit in the corner week.”

Titters and giggles and amused shuffling feet, not his.

So he pressed Play and remembered the steps: a half-puppeted soft-shoe. The shift from blank robotic face to bright malicious grin to falsely welcoming good cheer. He didn’t have a hat, but he had an improvised cane and his shoulders and hips and feet, and the dreadful dirge-drums of war and bloodshed and bitter history in his head. Marionette movements. And when he finally straightened, arms out wide, and declared, “Ta-da!” he was not at all surprised by the bright lightning-flash of applause that swept the room.

“Okay,” and he put his umbrella back into the stand next to the door, “before we name plays and actors and the music, tell me, what did that number make you feel? What emotions were being expressed?”

A girl in the front row: glasses and a frown and words tattooed around her left wrist. “A shark’s smile. Predators.”

“Like an attack, only dancing--the cane was the weapon.” Another girl, this one with bright purple streaks in her haloed curls.

“Like any moment now the character was going to kill someone. Or someones. And then keep on dancing,” said the boy in the black cap at the back of the room.

Sebastian nodded and flashed a thumbs-up gesture. “Keep going.”

“That was a complicated smile,” a third girl offered. The overhead lights caught the cracks in her leather gloves. “Like seduction and malice.”

“It’s a don’t-fuck-with-me smile,” said the first girl.

“Good work, everyone,” Sebastian said, “you’ve mostly got it--and before we go any further afield, let’s find out what that number was and where it came from--”

“ _Pippin_ ,” said the boy in black. “And you were the Leading Player.”

“I was. That number is part of the song ‘Glory’, which appears in the first act of the musical. It’s often done on its own, in which case it is referred to as the ‘Manson Trio’.” Sebastian retrieved his glasses from the desk, and then pushed its massive bulk out of the way. “Googling and Wikipedia-ing later; we’ve got something else to do right now. On your feet, come on, bags in the corners,” and then he led the class through a quick warm-up routine before putting them through a series of paces: different kinds of walks, different kinds of standing positions.

“No talking, no talking, come on,” he called, encouragingly, over the confused babble. “Words aren’t all we’ve got to tell a story with. Show me who you are. Are you standing on a rain-soaked street in Ho Chi Minh City? Is it rush hour around the Champ de Mars in Paris? Are you queuing up for a ticket to whatever’s on at the Royal Albert Hall in London? Is it 1920s New York City? Is someone asking you to dance with them right on the streets of Buenos Aires? Show me, use your bodies, use your faces--”

“Awww,” someone in the back of the class said, not quite _sotto voce_. “I was waiting for him to talk about being on a perpetual machine train.”

“Or Hong Kong and tanks full of monster fish.”

“Or or or. Um. I don’t know. I’m stumped. An action-movie asshole in Toronto? Black leather jacket and really weird facial hair?”

Again that traitorous blush, but this time Sebastian could hide in his collars, behind his glasses, in the jacket that he’d put back on.

The bell rang for the end of the class, for the end of the day, making him smile. “Assignments to be emailed out by the end of the week, and then you’ll have a few free periods to prepare, got it?”

After the last student had gone, sweaty and radiant and bright-eyed despite a day full of droning rain falling on grimy closed windows, he could take a deep breath and put the chairs back in order. He could take in the whitewashed walls and the silence that was never empty: because he was carrying songs and scenes and steps around in his head, the things he’d wanted to do and never got the chance, and now he poured himself into preparing others for those roles.

He could kind of remember having had the same energy as they did, though he’d been gawky, then, too--and he’d been smaller and star-struck and even shorter than the little girl on stage, the little girl who was singing young Cosette. As prone to staring as to fidgeting. One minute he’d be walking up and down the backstage corridors, hugging himself to stay warm, and another he’d be pinned between two sets of curtains, accidentally listening to various snatches of conversation and nearly incomprehensible gossip. He still liked that candy that Lea had shared with him, and every now and then he bought huge bags of the stuff in Chinatown, and he always kept one bag for himself and he always gave one bag away to the other instructors.

He popped one of those candies into his mouth, now, and he sucked contemplatively on the sugary earthy lozenge, and began to sing:

And little people know  
When little people fight  
We may look easy pickings  
But we’ve got some bite  
So never kick your dog  
Because he’s just a pup  
We’ll fight like twenty armies  
And we won’t give up  
So you’d better run for cover  
When the pup grows up!

“That’s pretty good,” a voice said from the door.

“Better than good, actually,” another voice added.

“Is there more?”

He turned around. Identical fond smiles. Scarlett’s dark braids and Margarita’s bright blue eyeliner.

He waved at them to come in, and began to gather his things up from where they were scattered over his desk. “I skipped the first verse. Are you guys done for the day, or just starting, or--?”

“We were waiting for you,” Margarita said. “Dinner. Hungry. Also this rain is making me think that I need booze.”

“To be fair, she’s not the only one--I mean, if you ever wanted an excuse to get blasted on hot toddies....” Scarlett added.

Sebastian crunched the candy to sweet splinters and grinned at them. “I can see right through you, you know.” He counted off on his fingers. “You want to get drunk. You want me to get drunk. You want to go to Cobie’s. And you want me to sing some more. It’s not like this is even the first time.”

Margarita splayed out her half-gloved hands in a “ta-da” gesture, nearly the exact mirror to the one he’d used in his class. “If the shoe fits,” she half-sang, a little throaty around the edges.

“Hot toddies, Sebastian,” Scarlett insisted. “You know you wanna.”

“Terrible, just terrible,” Sebastian said, but he was returning Scarlett’s grin even as he spoke, even as he fished the keys to his lemon of a yellow sedan out of his pocket.

Hot toddies couldn’t compare to tea and warm encouragement and the harmonies of a hand-picked group of singers, to the smell of indoor fireworks, to red and white and blue balloons and one final shattering cannon shot, but friendship was friendship then and now.

He thought about writing to Lea and to Colm, sometime in the near future - he’d tell them about trying the old Gavroche cadences out again, and about friends who were intent on making him sing.

About wanting to sing for those friends.

 

**Chris - are you a leading man**

Chris stared at the email. The email stared back. Okay, he thought, and got up to find a beer.

When he came back it’d carried on waiting for him. He touched the keyboard, touched his laptop, experimentally. Outside, the rain chattered and splashed, conversing cheerily with rooftops and gutters. Chris knew about gutters and rooftops; he’d run along them, doing stunts, brandishing prop weapons in sunshine and bright wind.

The email hadn’t changed when he read it again. Still inviting him to come and give a guest talk, still with a professional sign-off from faculty at the Applause Acting Workshops Manhattan center. Still almost apologetically acknowledging that of course he was busy, of course he had a career as a Hollywood movie star, they felt a bit bad even asking, but they’d pay his airfare and hotel fees and the students would love to get advice from someone who’d made it in the industry…

It was a drama school. Theater kids. Acting. Chris drank half his beer, contemplatively, and listened to the rain. He’d grown up doing theater, of course--hell, he could tapdance and sing _Oklahoma!_ as well as just about anyone--but he’d been working in film for a very long time. And some of those roles…

Some of those roles were brilliant. Especially now, when he could maybe, maybe, say he might’ve made it at last. Experimental idea-driven science-fiction. A romantic thoughtful piece with a good heart. A blockbuster or two.

Some of those roles’d required him to shove a banana in his ass and get naked on camera and fall off a skateboard and sing Journey songs, not simultaneously. He touched the _y_ , on the keyboard, but didn’t press down.

He knew himself. He tried to know himself, more accurately. Chris Evans, kid from Boston--well, technically Sudbury; that’d been the subject of a few goodnatured disputes--who’d gotten lucky. Kid from Boston who carried tattoos like souvenirs and scars, reminders of family and loss. Kid who still turned red and got sweaty and stammered in front of interviewers and rooms full of people who only wanted to love him. And this drama school thought he had some insight to share.

But Chris Evans also wasn’t good at saying no when someone needed him, never had been, never would be. And if these kids did, if their instructors honestly thought he could have something important to say…

He looked up at the knock on his half-open door. Scott didn’t bother waiting for the invitation, only walked right in and sprawled across Chris’s childhood bed with unfairly practiced soap-opera grace. “Mom wants to know if you’re coming down for dinner. And also I read your script.”

“You what? And yeah, in a minute--wait, what script?” He shut the laptop with maybe a bit more force than necessary. “Get your shoes off my bed.”

“Nah. The one that came in the mail this morning. Updated rock-opera take on the period musical thing. And there’s spaghetti.”

“I’m disowning you,” Chris told him. “Disavowing. Whatever I can do to siblings. Shoes _off_ my _bed_. Was it any good?”

“Actually, yeah.” Scott sat up. Regarded him critically. “I like the beard. Very mature. Professorial. You need a job.”

“I _have_ a--”

“Yeah, you need breaks, famous actor, demands of the silver screen, I get that. You’ve been staying with Mom for two months and ducking your industry phone calls. That’s not a break. That’s hiding. You need a job, something that’ll be a challenge, and this one looks fun. I’ll tell you about it over spaghetti.”

Chris glared. Wondered when his brother’d gotten so annoyingly insightful. “I’m eating all your garlic bread.”

“Bread makes you fat,” Scott said, “you’ll end up professorial _and_ fat,” and grabbed his shoes and ran before Chris could throw them at him.

The rain danced across the eaves of his childhood bedroom. It sounded like applause, but not the sort of applause that made him flinch, these days. It sounded kind, like it wouldn’t judge him, like it saw him and not the box-office draw.

Professorial, he thought. A joke, but maybe, maybe. When he breathed, he could taste his mother’s cooking, wafting up through the floorboards and open doors. Italian spice and tomato sauce and cozy heat. The cool delighted shimmer of rain and the skies of Boston, history and history-making. The place he could always come back to.

A guest lecture. Students. An acting class. He could be honest about the industry; even if he didn’t have any great secrets to share, he could tell them what he’d done, what he’d learned. That might be something. Might be helpful, in a small way. And New York wasn’t far. He could be there in a day.

He opened the laptop. The email popped up eagerly. He answered, and went downstairs humming “Kiss The Girl” from _The Little Mermaid_ for no reason at all, and stole his script back from Scott to read later that night in bed with the heat on and blankets over his toes and leftover garlic bread to devour with no one around.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chris - it’s not at all like having superpowers**

Chris wandered around the Manhattan site of the acting school, in the rain again, and decided he didn’t mind getting wet here in this place. He was a day early--he’d found that that helped with the anxiety, knowing the location, advance scouting, preparation--and his feet had splashed through puddles as he ran up the front steps, and the sound had made him smile.

Real, that sound. Real like the white walls and warm wood floors of the building; real like the chatter of voices and students learning, developing, honing skills with enthusiasm.

He ran a hand through his hair. Maybe he should’ve brought an umbrella. The cloudburst had caught him by surprise in the minute between car and entryway. He wasn’t soaked through or anything, though, just enough to taste rain-splashes on his lips; no, he thought again, he didn’t mind. Like being awake, like feeling present and alive.

He peeked inquisitively into a few classrooms. Unoccupied, of course. No barging in on anyone’s studies. Wouldn’t feel good.

He had the room number for his guest talk the following afternoon, and he was slowly exploring that way, he really was. Once or twice he’d ducked out of sight of students and teachers. He didn’t want anyone showing him around or chattering nervously at the Hollywood action hero. He was hiding--yeah, okay, he’d admit it, though never to Scott--under his jacket and baseball cap for a reason, and so far it’d worked: either nobody’d recognized him or had had enough tact to not call him out while he was halfheartedly disguised.

Nice of them, he thought. A good word. Everyone seemed....nice. The excited students, the smiling faculty, the exuberant conversations he kept passing in hallways. The air quivered with passion, appreciation, support. Tangible, imbued in high ceilings and the memories possessed by floorboards.

He paused to watch a pair of instructors pass, both pretty, one blonde and one red-haired; they were laughing, and one of them said, a bit wistfully, “--yes, but did you ever hear him sing anything from _Rocky Horror_ , he did it once at a Christmas party after four shots of Stoli Blueberi, and _why_ didn’t we ever know he could sing while doing a striptease--”

“He didn’t,” her friend gasped, wide-eyed with delight, blonde curls bouncing; and Chris wondered about that _he_ , and raised eyebrows at the memory of certain Rocky Horror performances he’d once or twice been present for.

“Only his shirt and suspenders,” the redhead sighed mournfully, “he’s way too self-aware, honestly, not just about the shirt but about the singing in public thing, we’re going to have to do _something_ to help, maybe there could be more vodka--”

They vanished into a faculty break room, door cutting off the reply. Chris spared a second or two to feel sorry for the unknown _he_. He knew how it felt to be constantly aware of oneself, to be thinking of critical eyes, to be _thinking_. He knew how it felt to have well-meaning friends, sometimes with alcohol, pushing him to loosen up and have a good time. And he hoped that this person--who evidently had excellent taste in transvestite cult classics as well as the loyal concern of those friends--would be okay, no matter what help might be engineered on his behalf.

And then he laughed at himself--worrying over a man he’d never met; well, not as if anyone’d ever know, and it was a good distraction from all the _other_ worries about tomorrow and guest lectures and practice scenes from some carefully chosen better-than-most past scripts--and headed off down the corridor in the direction of his room. Preparation. Focus. Right.

The rain skittered and scampered along the windowpanes, keeping up merrily with his stride. He checked room numbers. Double-checked. Nope, they _had_ put him in a giant space at the end of one hall. Wonderful. So many eyes. So many students, with eyes on him. Waiting for his advice, his input, his help.

He shut his eyes. Leaned against the cool whitewashed wall beside the tall wooden door. Tried not to think of anything at all. Only himself, small and quiet, part of the rain.

After a second he opened the door a fraction and peeked in again. Seats. A stage. Okay.

Seats, and a stage, and…

...and a voice. A man. Singing. Moving around the stage, checking things--checking what? light fixtures, set-up, preparation for tomorrow?--and singing.

And Chris was spellbound.

That _voice_. Like smoke and honey; like New York streets and a hint of mystery. A touch of accent that came and went like shadows under sun, elusive and tempting and only barely noticeable because Chris’d always been good at accents. Melody like quiet joy: this man wasn’t performing for anyone except himself, and he sounded like he must be smiling, except Chris also thought of shadows and sun again: it was, he thought, that sort of smile.

The man was, at first, playing around with the lines of “Singin’ in the Rain,” cheerfully appropriate to the weather: _I’m laughing at clouds, so dark up above; the sun’s in my heart, and I’m ready for love...._ After a moment the lyrics turned into, thoughtfully and not without some irony, a song that Chris needed a minute to place: _I have the time, so I will sing, yeah...I’m just a boy, but I will win, yeah...if I should stumble, would you catch my fall...._

Billy Idol. “Catch My Fall.” Chris nearly laughed--eighties pop, on the tapdancing heels of Gene Kelly--but the thing was: it worked. This man made it work, alone, instrumentless, haunting. Singing and dancing in the rain, and questions about falling, and being rescued, and being caught.

He snuck a few steps further in, intrigued. The other person didn’t notice, being currently absorbed in some sort of intense consideration of the tidiness of the stage. Chris just sort of kept walking, pulled in by that voice, and ended up lurking at stage right, in the wings.

The person was stunning, up close. Not just the voice. Not just the quiet self-directed amusement. Not just the fluffy dark hair and pale skin and endless legs and slim waist, wrapped up in distressingly trendy black skinny jeans and a green-and-black striped shirt and awkward baby-deer grace. Not just those things; all of them. Together. And Chris was pretty sure that he was in love; that he’d never known what love was, before now, before Billy Idol and Gene Kelly and the backdrop of falling rain.

He forgot that he was technically eavesdropping and even more technically probably not supposed to be hovering in the wings a day early, and took a step forward without stopping to think about the consequences of his feet and his heart being in charge of the decision-making.

The person turned around, eyes huge at the interruption--and then even more huge, and the note broke off mid-line, halfway through the question: _if I should stumble, would you--_

 

**Sebastian - I’d like to teach the world to sing**

Creaking, from somewhere very close by, and the first thing in his mind was--the ghost.

The stories told upon and around that stage often mentioned the extra footstep, the extra note, sweet purple-rippling-heather burr--nothing and no one to be afraid of. A helpful shade, friendly, perhaps one that worried after the students. He’d heard Scarlett talk about blankets appearing out of nowhere when the heating went on the fritz, as it seemed to do at least three times every winter; he’d heard about the girl who fled into one of the dressing rooms to escape an anxiety attack and came out smiling and tremulous and trying to sing a Scottish drinking song.

He was still waiting for the right moment to share his own story, his own encounter--four hands, his and the ghost’s, gliding skittering crescendos from the upright cabinet piano in the corner. He’d had the patient old instrument retuned afterwards, grateful and charmed, and he’d refused all attempts at reimbursement, even when the person making the offer had been none other but Mr Jackson, sweeping billowing black leather duster and booming laughing amusement.

So he wasn’t expecting anyone to be there when he looked up, when he tried to look toward the oncoming footsteps.

But.

There was someone there.

Jacket, baseball cap--but that wasn’t all.

Famous shoulders. Broad and strong. The powerful curve of a larger-than-life jaw.

Sebastian wanted to fall over, wanted to disappear into rain and mist and the bright heat rising in his cheeks.

A well-known face. A name that appeared on marquees, in bright blazing lights.

This had to be punishment, he thought, for deliberately reading the email about the guest lecturer only once.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t known. It wasn’t like it was an ambush. The girls had needled him relentlessly over hot toddies and a rainbow of fruit-splashed cocktails. Margarita had made a point out of texting him candids and headshots and still images. One single face. A thousand moods. A thousand emotions.

He felt like itchy shawls and wooden shoes again, and even sounded like it, when he made himself say, “I--I’m so sorry--and also hello, I should have started with that--um--Mr Evans. You’re early--”

He put his own hands over his mouth, then. He started to back away. That famous face was knotted up in one hell of an expression, Sebastian thought, over and above the little voice nibbling around the back of his mind that noted the pretty lines and the faint dusting of freckles and those expressive eyes.

Eyes that were currently equal parts “WTF?” and “Help!” and “Run!”--or was he describing himself? He certainly felt like he wanted to disappear into the nearest wall.

The piano would have to do.

He backed away, and put the piano between himself and actual _Chris Evans_ , and he was trying to find some kind of excuse, some kind of witty getaway line, when--

“Don’t suppose you’d know ‘White Wedding’?”

It was like stepping onstage for the first time all over again--or it was like being coaxed onto the stage, Sebastian thought, like following other people toward the footlights over and over again. His feet tripping weightlessly along, and around his shoulders the unimaginable old fuzzy familiar weight of stage fright.

He thought he heard a whisper from stage left, bracing, gently needling, a breeze down a lonely hillslope: _“Nothing wrong with a friendly conversation, is there?”_

He glanced in that direction. Put his hands down. Watched himself touch the piano, reveal the keys. Black-and-white gleam and the promise of a song.

“I can sing that,” Sebastian offered, “but I wouldn’t be too sure about the chords. I can look them up online--”

Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. Why was Chris Evans blushing, he wanted to know. But that wasn’t the question that came out; what he heard instead was verbal backspacing.

“Never mind,” Chris Evans said, “forget I said anything. Pretty fucking presumptuous of me to ask if you knew that song. I don’t even know if you were planning to take requests.”

“Depends on the request,” Sebastian heard himself say. “I’ll admit I can play the piano, but I don’t really know a lot of the current Top 40--”

“We weren’t talking about that, though, were we?”

He could smile. He was allowed to. Chris Evans was smiling now and he couldn’t stop himself, he was tripping along in the other man’s wake, and he smiled back. “No. Okay, Mr Evans.”

“Please don’t call me that. Mr Evans is my dad, when people don’t just call him ‘doc’.”

“Chris, then.” Sebastian offered up a shrug.

“That’s me.” A hand, then, a reciprocal offering. “And you are?”

“Sebastian. I--kind of work here. I’m an instructor.”

“Nice to meet you, Instructor Sebastian,” and Chris was definitely smiling: amusement lurking around the edges of his beard.

A brief touch of scattered starred scars, rough spots, constellations of wear and tear.

Sebastian put his own hands back on the keys. Started playing, just at random, starting from middle C and then--a tremulous melody, caught somewhere between self-doubt and courage, between ideal bravery and the very real possibility of death.

“That’s complicated,” Chris said, from very close by, and Sebastian wanted to look up, wanted to stare at that flash of insight, but he was lost in the swirling slow determined rise of the music.

He sighed, exhaling regret, when he stopped. Trailing notes and rests. He couldn’t remember the last part of the tune.

He needed a distraction, and he found it in the quiet scrape of a chair, heading towards him. Chris, and one of the chairs taken from the almost-neat rows, just a little out of arm’s-reach.

“That almost sounded familiar,” Chris said, after a moment. “Like something from the stage.”

“I didn’t think anyone was interested in reviving _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ here,” Sebastian murmured.

He watched as Chris blinked, once, twice, and nodded. “I’ve heard bits of it. My brother kind of fell in love with one of the original Percys.”

“I have a friend who’s into Japanese musical theater,” Sebastian said, “and she showed me a DVD, once. It wasn’t just that Percy was being played by a woman; it was that every single part was being played by women. That song I was just playing. You could call it a bonus track. But it was written by the same guy who wrote the score for the musical.”

“It was good. Complicated. You’re good.”

He couldn’t help but shake his head. It was a reaction that the stage couldn’t take away from him. “Thank you,” he said, to be polite. “You should listen to the other instructors though. Anthony’s hell on a piano. And let’s not get started on Jeremy and his drum kit.”

Soft laughter. He wanted to lean in and bask in it.

“It sounds like you’ve got some kind of band going on,” Chris said, and there was a smile playing around his eyes.

“Come join us some time.” The words left Sebastian in a thoughtless rush. His brain caught up with him just a moment later. Famous-actor Chris, just Chris in this rehearsal space, one day early to a guest lecture, wasn’t based in New York City--he preferred to stay in Boston. Home. Birthplace.

Sebastian knew pretty much nothing about Boston. A thoroughly unfamiliar city. How different could it be from NYC? How different could it be from Vienna? From the city of his birth, the city he’d only ever referred to in the old-fashioned way: Tomis? He wasn’t sure he could count London as one of _his_ cities. Barely a year there and most of that spent hanging around the West End.

It was a surprise to hear Chris answer, more so when Sebastian thought he heard something almost wistful in the accented edges of the words: “That--might be a good idea. Some time maybe.”

Something in Sebastian wanted to reach out to him. Ghostly murmurs from nearby, not quite words, encouraging--but it was startlingly easy, too, to think of Chris as--perhaps--a new student, reticent, careful and impulsive at the same time in speaking.

And Sebastian tended to treat the reticent ones with gentle distances, bridged with careful smiles--so he smiled, now, at Chris, and waited patiently for Chris to smile back.

 

**Chris - when was it ever this easy before**

Sebastian was smiling. At him.

Chris breathed in and out. Smiled back: a conscious act, not because it was difficult but because he was incredibly aware of each movement, every muscle, every prickle of skin along his forearms in the theater hush.

Sebastian was smiling at him, wide and kind and compassionate. Like soothing, like strength; waterfalls, Chris thought, or a lake he’d once camped beside, peaceful deep layered blue.

He wasn’t at all surprised that Sebastian--not _his_ Sebastian, though his brain supplied the possessive pronoun unbidden--was an instructor here. A perfect fit, that kindness and this place and that smile.

“You play the piano,” he said, just for something to say.

“I do.” Sebastian touched keys, lightly: not playing the notes, but promising them attention. Long fingers lingered over worn ivory like a kiss. “My mother’s better. I’m not bad--I’m not being deliberately self-disparaging--but she’s done concerts, shows.... If you heard her you’d never want to bother with me.”

“I don’t know,” Chris said, and put a hand on the piano, gesture born out of impulse. “I bet she can’t sing Billy Idol. And I like bothering with you. Is that a verb? Or--am I? Bothering you?”

“Not at all,” Sebastian said promptly, and then looked somewhat astonished, possibly at the quickness of his answer. “I should be asking that of you. I was making sure everything was in place for tomorrow; does it look all right?”

“Fine.” He’d worked on far worse soundstages, and on windswept scrub-brush locations, and atop slanting action-movie roofs. Because Sebastian seemed unconvinced, he said as much.

Sebastian glanced down at the piano keys: not a visible blush, but the reaction of one being hidden. “I know--I mean, I don’t--I just mean I’ve seen--”

“My movies? As long as you’ve never seen the one with the banana. We don’t talk about the banana.” He tried to make sure the words came out gentle, teasing rather than sharp. Sebastian was, he could tell, a kind person, sweet and generous and willing to offer a calm shoulder or quiet space, whichever Chris might need; Chris found himself quite suddenly and desperately and wholeheartedly wanting to offer the same to pale aquamarine eyes in turn.

“I might have seen that one,” Sebastian admitted, and lifted his head. His cheeks were faintly pink, but he didn’t shy from Chris’s gaze. “I thought you were brave.”

Chris raised eyebrows at that. So did the piano, eyelessly.

“No, I mean it.” A shoulder-lift, and drop: a shrug. “To do that, to put yourself out there on film, to give everything you have no matter the project--that’s brave. Will you be talking about that, tomorrow? Not the banana.”

Chris, still trying to process--in the space of two sentences, Sebastian’d flipped his entire perspective on his early career completely around and inside-out for good measure--managed, “I...don’t know exactly...no fruit though...about being on camera and how it’s not like a stage, maybe...I should go and work on that, shouldn’t I....”

Sebastian put his head on one side. Smiled again. Lit up Chris’s world. “Probably, seeing as you’ll be speaking to us all tomorrow afternoon.”

“I’m sorry if I’m terrible,” Chris said. He meant it.

Sebastian came around from behind the piano. Leaned a hip against it, right next to Chris’s space; close enough to touch. Earnest warmth in those eyes. “You won’t be.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I’ve seen you on camera. You put your heart into everything you do. You’ll do that here. And if you stumble over a line or need to think of the right words to explain an idea, we’ll wait. Because you’re here to help, and you’re worth listening to.”

“Am I,” Chris echoed, breathless, caught up in the fierceness of those eyes.

“Of course you are,” Sebastian said, and then looked away again, with an exhale of sound that was almost a laugh. “You wanted to be alone here, though, to prepare. I’m sorry. I can go.”

“Yeah, but--”

“You didn’t tell me--was there anything else you might need?”

“Wait,” Chris said, and Sebastian stopped, poised on the edge of the stage. Honesty for honesty, then. Sebastian’d meant every word. Chris knew that his own wouldn’t come out right, and knew that he had to say them, right now.

He said, “Yeah. About anything else--I mean, I’ve been thinking about the next project, and it’s a musical, like a rock musical thing, and also this, tomorrow, and about being scared and--how to keep going when everything’s too loud, and--oh, fuck, listen, what I mean is, I need to be alone, yeah, tonight, I can’t think about anything else, I can’t worry about something else when I’ve got a job to--”

Sebastian’s expression now suggested growing concern. Chris mentally swore at himself and tried again. “I mean I’m saying I’m going to go back to the hotel and hide in my room tonight but I’d kind of like to maybe buy you coffee tomorrow, if you drink coffee, or whatever you drink, if you drink things, people drink things, right, would you like to have some sort of drink with me in the future after this is all over and I’m going to stop talking now.”

“Oh my God,” Sebastian said.

“I’m so sorry,” Chris said.

“Oh my God,” Sebastian said again. Plus a dazed-sounding word or two in a language Chris didn’t know, liquid and astounded. “Did you...Chris Evans...just ask me out for some sort of...future coffee?”

“Or future tea?”

“You don’t even know me.”

“You teach here,” Chris said, “and you love it, and you made me smile. And you sing when you think no one can hear you. Please.” I think I need you, he didn’t say. I think I need you in my life. I think I’m wondering if you’d ever sing to me, some morning, some sunlit morning when we’re waking up and making breakfast together.

“Chris.” Sebastian put a hand on his shoulder. Chris felt that touch all the way to his bones. “You’re anxious about tomorrow and you’ve just met me and you needed someone and I was here. And I’m nobody special. I’m a teacher. And you’re a movie star. And I want to say yes. So very much.”

“Then say yes.”

“Ask me tomorrow,” Sebastian told him, eyes looking up into his; not far up, only an inch or so between them. Not far at all. “After you’re done here.”

I won’t be done with you, Chris’s heart wanted to say. He said, “Will you be there? On stage. Tomorrow. With me.”

“I will if you want me.”

“Musical cues. Emphasis. Stage combat. Journey songs.”

“‘Don’t stop believin’,” Sebastian half-quoted, half-sang back to him. “I’ll be there. Go back to your hotel. Breathe.”

“Tomorrow,” Chris said, and Sebastian smiled. Their fingers brushed as Sebastian lifted his hand from Chris’s shoulder, as they turned to go. Chris’s whole body quivered and hummed.

In his hotel room, surrounded by grey skies and the susurration of rain, he wrote down notes, tore up notes, tried again. Closed his eyes and pictured curving lips and endless lakewater blue serenity. Felt that hand on his shoulder.

He opened his eyes, and tried again, and read those notes over. Not half bad. Genuine, anyway. About things these kids, experienced in theater and working with Broadway-trained instructors, might need to know about film and different perspectives; about loving the characters even if the job was ridiculous, because the characters were people too, good or bad or in between, complicated and human.

He brushed his teeth and got into bed and checked his email. He wasn’t expecting anything, but something new popped up, from an address he didn’t recognize, from an s.stan associated with the school. He opened it. It said simply, _I’ll see you tomorrow. --S._ But there was an attachment, a music file; when he played it, a fragment of classic rock twinkled up at him, piano-adapted and short and obviously hastily recorded on a mobile phone, but bright with merriment and telling him once again to not stop believing, to hold on to that feeling....

He caught a flicker of audible embarrassed laughter at the end, before Sebastian stopped recording himself, before a hand picked up the phone from what must’ve been the top of the piano.

He played it again, sitting on his bed with his toes tucked under the sheets as armor against the rain, and he went to sleep the night before his lecture smiling, which as of that morning he’d’ve sworn he’d never be able to do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Sebastian - hold your head ever higher and into the fire we go**

What a difference a few hours could make, Sebastian thought, dazed, in the doorway of a space that had been filled with music and quiet words and shocking artlessly honest eyes. A hasty snatch of song, a whisper of encouragement, and now--now this.

“Out of the way, out of the way--oh, Seb, excuse me--hey, are you all right?” A slur of words and an edge of concern. An impressive physique and a pair of sunglasses, all the way indoors in here, and short-cropped hair. Jeremy could only nudge him with a foot because he was laden down with a handful of folding chairs. 

Sebastian blinked at him. Hunched into his coat, long and mostly protective against the rain, hems flapping around his knees like he’d once seen a friend of his wear hers. Coat or not, though, he could still feel that unimaginable weight on his shoulders, more than just stage fright this time, more than the nerves he carried around with him every day. “I--I think I am, yeah, just didn’t sleep much.”

That much was true. Hours of tossing, hours of second-guessing, and he’d finally poured himself out onto a piece of paper, not quite composing a letter, not quite writing out the words of a song of his own. 

(And who would read it if it were a letter, as incoherent as it had been? Lea might have understood, but not without a lot of explaining, and as that was something he’d rather have done in person he couldn’t send it on to her from out of the blue. It wasn’t the first time he’d cursed the day and more of transit between New York City and Manila.)

“Coffee,” was Jeremy’s sage recommendation. His hands smelled of roasted beans, as usual. “I got the pot set up in the break room. Gotta warn you, it’s strong stuff.”

“I’d like some,” Sebastian said, immediately, and he turned away from the piano at the far end of the room, pushed gently out of the way in favor of three empty music stands. Stand-ins, right, that was the term. Substitutes for cameras. The entire idea of the lecture and the guest come to deliver it. The differences between treading the floorboards and facing a camera, or three, or a battery. 

Excited voices behind him, glittering--laughter and the recollections of big-screen performances. The snowbound spiral dance of an axe, rising and falling and dealing out death and revolutionary fervor. Or was it blood dancing off the edge of a heavy cleaver? Finger guns and a crossbow?

He shook the various images of weaponry out of his head. Not the props that they would be using today.

He poured half a cup of coffee--just half. He could still hear yesterday’s words in his head. He’d been kept up half the night with the ringing in his ears that no well-worn pillow could block. An invitation, and a gentle diversion. Where had he found the audacity to tell someone like Chris Evans to ask again tomorrow--today, now? 

“Sebastian,” someone said, from very close by, and he had the feeling that it wasn’t the first time, and he turned.

Immediately the impish light in Margarita’s eyes dimmed, just a little. “You don’t look too good. Do you want to duck out of the demonstration? I know, I know, Scarlett and I volunteered you to do the thing with the stage fencing, and you’ve been a good sport about it until now--”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “Let’s not talk about that. I mean, I’ll still do it. I’m the best we’ve got, right?”

“Well, if by best you mean you’ve knocked even Mr Jackson onto his ass.”

Sebastian echoed her grin, if a little faintly. “I’ve done it six times running. Six times in a row, even. So it’ll be me. I’ll do the demonstration. It’s just, well,” and he told her about the previous day, and didn’t miss that her jaw fell open within the first ten words.

“Wait, wait, stop,” she said, suddenly, and pulled out her mobile phone. “Scarlett,” she said into the device. “Break room, now.”

“I’m kind of busy here,” was the tinny reply, backed by the static of the still-falling rain. 

“Not busy enough for this. Two names. Sebastian Stan. Chris Evans. Do you want to hear the story or not?”

A long pause, and then Sebastian heard Scarlett say, “ _Shit_ ”--and moments later Scarlett herself was coming through the door and pulling it closed. “Seriously?” she asked.

“Seriously,” Margarita said, pulling her into their circle.

“Nothing until after this demonstration.” Sebastian tried to find his footing. It was easy, in the presence of loyalty like theirs.

Scarlett stepped forward, beckoning--and he found himself caught up in the circle of her arms. The weight of Margarita pressed against his back. He didn’t know which one of them whispered, “Luck”--but one moment they were there and the next they were gone, leaving him with the coffee and the incipient rush, the heady admixture of adrenaline and caffeine. 

Chatter and wide-eyed attention and not a little shocked murmuring as the students got situated, as the identity of the guest lecturer made its long circuitous gossip-loop, and next to the stage, a tall container full of _shinai_. Bamboo, handguard, the hilt wrapped in heavy leather. 

Sebastian picked one of the swords up, careful, respectful. A practice swing. Whistling, the tip of the sword whipping through the air, faster than his own eyes could follow. A guard position, a thrust, a parry and a counterthrust in sharp syncopated sequence, and-- 

A voice in the wings. Quiet. Not the ghost. A different accent, and only Sebastian could hear the faint shiver around the edges. What that shiver _meant_ , though, he could only have a distant shimmering inkling of. “I’m coming in. Let me pick up one of those weapons. We’ll jump straight into it.”

He answered, just as quietly: “Ready when you are.”

“Turn towards those stands whenever you can. They’re--they’re the cameras. Didn’t have anything else to work with in here.”

Sebastian smiled, and deliberately turned his back on his audience--the faces of the students, and the faces of the other instructors. He willed them all away. Pretended that he’d stepped back in time. Not all the way to the Royal Albert Hall. No need for that. Maybe he needed the martial cadences, just a memory of background music, like all fight scenes tended to have. But yesterday, yesterday would do. This time with swords.

A step, and another, behind him, advancing upon him, and Sebastian summoned up his courage, every last drop of his strength--he “drew” and turned around, he leapt forward, and he could hear the whistle of the weapon, he could already feel the unstoppable CRACK of incoming impact, until-- 

Blocked, he was blocked, and he danced to the side, danced away from the incoming riposte--a blur that was a threat that was going to hurt--he could take the opportunity, he could allow the strike-- 

In the silent rush within him he could almost hear the gasps, he could almost feel the bruise that would soon be staining his arm and shoulder deep blood-blue--but there, there, he could press the advantage, he could take this victory--he whipped the sword around, felt his entire body and everything he had turn with it, the inexorable weight of momentum, shoulder and hip and the full length of his arm, one stroke one strike after another-- 

Time slowed. Back down to normal. Back down to the intervals that he could measure with a breath, with a heartbeat, with a blink-- 

It was Chris Evans, of course. Gone the casual jacket and gone the battered cap. Adrenaline-bright eyes. He was turned towards one of the music stands--of course he would be--he had just been in a demonstration duel, and the camera would want to look at him, even though he’d very theoretically lost. 

A black sweater, fine and translucent, over a white button-down shirt pinstriped in dark red. Boots and trousers and not a drop of rain on him. Hair slicked back as though he were stepping onto a red carpet.

And all Sebastian could do was breathe a sigh of relief that he’d worn his best coat.

“Oh my god,” someone in the audience whispered--Sebastian almost recognized the voice, one of Anthony’s students?--and then, a storm of clapping and hooting. “Don’t move yet,” someone implored. The flash of cameras going off.

Even Jeremy, sitting in a chair turned back to front next to Margarita, had his mobile phone up and clicking away.

He held his pose--the tip of his sword was still trembling, just, very nearly at Chris’s throat. Had he been using an actual weapon, something with an edge and with a lethal point, Chris Evans would be bleeding to death now.

Thank goodness for _shinai_.

“Thank you,” Chris said, now, and the first time he said it he said it to the audience, for those shocked smiles.

“Thank you,” Chris said, now, and the second time he said it was for Sebastian alone. Those eyes looking his way, that hand carefully pulling him back into something resembling an upright and standing position. “That hurt, didn’t it,” he murmured, gesturing towards Sebastian’s shoulder.

“Better bruised than bleeding, that’s why we use these,” Sebastian told him. “And it won’t be that bad. I can put ice on it. We have a clinic. Don’t worry about me.”

“I won’t,” was the quiet reply, “if you’ll let me apologize.”

“Forgiven.”

“Coffee later, or tea, or whatever it is you want to drink?”

He would laugh, he would, if only he wasn’t caught and pinned on that regard--if only he didn’t want to be caught and pinned on Chris Evans. 

Deeply conscious of every eye still turned toward them, of the lecture that was yet to come--he nodded, a decisive movement for all that it was quick and fleeting, for all that he tried to make it neutral.

He reluctantly slid away from Chris, then. His shoulder was already starting to burn. He needed that ice. But it was so difficult to walk away.

It had been so difficult to walk away last night that he’d had to sing: _hold on to that feeling_. Advice for the night ahead.

As he walked through the movement of staring faces he could hear Chris clearing his throat, hear him introduce himself. Poking fun at his own work. The appreciative laughter from the assembled.

Once he was out of sight, alone in the rain-echoing corridors, he could smile, too. He could smile, and laugh, despite ice against his skin, despite blue-blossoming on his shoulder.

A text-message chime. An unknown number, but Sebastian knew who it might be. _I hope you don’t mind. I asked one of the other instructors for your number. I told them I was worried about you._

He hastened to reassure Chris. _I’m coming back down. I just had to take a moment. Go back to your lecture._

 _I don’t dare interrupt the others,_ was the reply. _Margarita and Scarlett._

 _I’ll be right down,_ Sebastian sent. He wouldn’t miss his friends tearing up the stage, or the gaze of imaginary cameras, for anything.

 

**Chris - your voice in between the lines**

Sebastian came back slightly pale, moving as if his shoulder hurt, smiling, beautiful. Chris stared, lost his train of thought for a second, cleared his throat, and covered up with a, “...and that’s what I meant about awesome co-stars, seriously, give him a hand.”

The audience gave many noisy hands. So did Scarlett and Margarita, having finished a romantic-dialogue demonstration in front of the mock cameras. Sebastian blushed faintly and sat down to Chris’s left, at the piano-bench, possibly out of deference to bruises. Chris took a step over there and hissed, “Are you all right?”

Sebastian turned a brilliant smile on him. More vivid than any camera-lights; more real and full of delight than anything Chris’d ever seen. He wanted to build a home inside that smile. “Marvelous. You?”

“Oh, y’know, making them laugh at my terrible film choices....” He touched the piano: dark silken wood beside Sebastian’s shoulder. “Nearly done.”

Sebastian tipped his head back toward center stage: go on. “I’ll be here.”

“Yeah,” Chris said, “with deadly practice weapons, remind me never to make you mad,” and Sebastian smiled again, not apologizing, not anything less than Chris’s equal on a stage or in combat or in the picking-up of heartbeats. Mutual, Chris thought. Everyplace in him, head to toes, tingled with elation.

He went back to his captive student audience. Talked to them a while more about stage and screen, about the different kinds of tension. The visceral in-the-moment rawness of a live performance; the chance to experiment, to play with multiple takes, on a film set. He was honest about stunt-fighting and choreography and bruises; that part carried over across genres, even if he did get a double sometimes around explosions and motorcycle leaps, and the kids needed to know that too, if they were interested in Hollywood careers: what would be the same, or less different, anyway.

He talked about good partners. About trusting the people working alongside him, no matter what. The stage lights glinted in his face. He glanced back at Sebastian. Sebastian played, one-handed, a brief run of notes, a trill of emphasis: underlining what Chris’d just said about faith and other people. And then started doing it more, a wry half-injured musical soundtrack to Chris’s closing story. This commentary turned a few sentences on storytelling and collaboration into a spun-gold fairytale, epic and elegant and woven with emotion.

He talked about superheroes. He finished with, “...yeah, maybe it’s ninety percent greenscreen behind you, but that’s kind of part of being a superhero, it’s not the greatest analogy, okay, but the thing is, when you’re imagining it all around you, you’re kinda getting to create the story in your head, and that can be really fuckin’ hard--oh, shit, sorry--okay, I give up. But you know what I mean. It can be hard, but also rewarding, because they’ll craft the scene sometimes around what you do with a shield and how you throw it, and that’s you telling the story, and that’s...sort of being a superhero, maybe, if I’ve learned anything about being one. And I’ll stop talking now, and thank you for letting me be here and, um, being part of you guys telling your stories.”

The applause came back. Sustained. Continuous. Chris laughed, half-embarrassed, feeling his ears get hot--after the fact, at least, better than sweating mid-speech--and glanced over at Sebastian once more time for support. 

Sebastian was applauding too. But not quite the same way as the general exuberant audience; those winter-blue eyes found Chris’s, with a look that knew all about the anxious ears and nervous sweats, and said to him: it’s over, and I’m with you, and you did more than fine.

They got off the stage. More accurately, Chris got them both off the stage; he’d hit the post-event tremulous accomplished relief and would need to either go get decently drunk or sit down very soon, but the wobbly feelings were presently subsumed under a throughgoing need to take care of Sebastian. 

Sebastian. Who’d played the piano for him, who had left him breathless and captivated on stage, who would sacrifice a shoulder to conquer a practice bout. Who’d made him feel like he had an anchor. A lodestone. Compass-north.

Backstage was quiet and narrow and chilly and brick-walled, dust-motes floating in the air like suspended solid rain. Chris kept a hand at Sebastian’s back, not touching the spot he knew had to be hurting, and steered them out of the way of any possible traffic. “Did you find ice?”

“I did.” Sebastian said nothing about the touch. Only leaned into it. “And you found my phone number.”

“Hey,” Chris said, “you emailed me first, and thank you for that, and--thank you.”

Sebastian tipped his head to one side. His eyes sparkled. Chris wanted to see that sparkle forever. “I’d say you’re welcome, but it was self-indulgent. I wanted to.”

“You told me to ask you out again after,” Chris said. “This is me asking.” 

“You’re still a movie star,” Sebastian said, not moving away, not backing down. “And I’m a teacher.”

“And you can kick my ass in a fight scene any day, and you sing melodramatic nineties rock when you think nobody’s listening, which, by the way, I have this thing, like a prospective script thing, it’s a musical, they kinda wanted me for the lead but I like losing to you in fights, I could be the villain, you could come and sing with me on camera if you wanted, if you wanted to, um, not teach, I mean not just teach, I can see how much you love that too,” Chris said, “and I think I sounded like a crazy person, oh God, I’m so sorry.” Please come with me everywhere. Please be part of my life. Please let yourself love this, performing, the way you obviously do.

Sebastian looked up at the ceiling. Down at the floor. At the voiceless dust-motes. Then at Chris’s face. “I...am still a teacher. Here. I wouldn’t give that up.”

“I know. Forget I--”

“Maybe.” Sebastian smiled again: softer, fond, slow sweet curl of generous lips. “You’re not wrong about me. I love it here. I love teaching. But today--what we did--I’d forgotten how much I love that. Too, you said. Also. So.”

“So…”

“So thank you.” Sebastian shifted weight, came a bit closer without really moving. Chris’s hand slid to the back of his neck as a result. Chris swallowed; Sebastian’s eyes danced, no objections at all. “And maybe. To the script. I’ve never done film. And I’d want to read it, and the schedule would have to work with mine here, of course, but maybe.... But yes to--drinks, or dinner, or--whatever you’re asking. If you’re still asking.”

“...yes?”

“Yes.” Sebastian blushed; they could stumble over words together, Chris thought, forever. Starting now. Starting here and now, backstage, with a touch and a possibility and applause in the chilly rain-laden air. “To you.”

 

**Sebastian - now I’m running to you!**

Stepping out into the rain-slashed night was a shock: cold glitter, icy mist, and Sebastian gasped, softly. Turned towards the nearest source of support.

Which was--Chris, and Chris’s hand still on the back of his neck. Pulling him in. Sweet soothing rumble of a gently shared breath, so close, making him shiver but not because he was afraid of falling temperatures or the ice in the night. 

“Cold,” he whispered, and Chris’s voice echoed his own, a harmony of complaint.

Sebastian dredged up a smile from somewhere in the collars of his coat. “I know a really good place for coffee and tea and--other things. Dinner. But we’ve got to run.”

And something fizzed and fluttered within him, bright brazen, when Chris turned towards him, nodding. “Whatever you want me to do. Wherever. As long as it gets you out of this cold.”

To lead, for once. Sebastian nodded, and offered Chris his hand. Warm clasp, powerful, grounding.

Running together, as easily as singing together.

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist forthcoming (we'd put it up now, but it contains spoilers)!
> 
>  **ETA 14 Feb: the promised playlist :)**  
>  Fabrice Bernard as Gavroche in Les Misérables, the original French-language concept album: [“La Faute A Voltaire”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE6Ct4WBRow) (with chorus)  
> Adam Searles as Gavroche in Les Misérables: The Dream Cast in Concert: [“Look Down”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHjIxogvl9s) (from the tenth anniversary of the musical, Royal Albert Hall)  
> Daniel Huttlestone as Gavroche in Les Misérables, the 2012 film adaptation of the musical: [“Look Down”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOLB0rEsrOU) (with additional verses)  
> Patina Miller as Leading Player from Pippin: [“Glory - Manson Trio”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI7SZnwRCJI), immediately followed by “Simple Joys” (2013 Broadway Revival, excerpt performed live on the Late Show with David Letterman)  
> Douglas Sills as Sir Percy Blakeney / the Scarlet Pimpernel in the musical of the same name: [“Into the Fire”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZXpo2WFbXA) (with the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Original Cast Recording)
> 
> Gene Kelly, [“Singin’ In The Rain,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1ZYhVpdXbQ) from the musical of that name  
> Billy Idol, [“Dancing With Myself”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG1NrQYXjLU), [“White Wedding”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAZQaYKZMTI), and [“Catch My Fall”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiMFvx43vpw)   
> Semisonic, [“Singing In My Sleep”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhS3YP04Fjk)  
> Journey, [“Don’t Stop Believing”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5wVZwdHmRY)


End file.
